Czech J. Genet. Plant Breed., X:X | DOI: 10.17221/41/2026-CJGPB

Identification of high-yielding and stable resistance donors for yellow mosaic disease in blackgram (Vigna mungo L. Hepper)Original Paper

Mitali Tiwari ORCID...¹, Anshuman Singh ORCID...², Shivam Yadav ORCID...¹, Meenakshi Arya ORCID...⁴, Amit Kumar ORCID...⁵, Priyanshi Garg³, Bhavana Tiwari³, Rakesh Choudhary ORCID...³, Rumana Khan³, Ashutosh Singh ORCID...³, Sushil Kumar Chaturvedi ORCID...³

¹ G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand, India

² ICAR-Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute, Pusa, New Delhi, India

³ Rani Lakshmi Bai Central Agricultural University, Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, India

⁴ ICAR-National Research Institute for Integrated Pest Management, New Delhi, India

⁵ Jawahar Lal Nehru Krishi Vishwavidyalaye, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, India

Yellow mosaic disease (YMD) in blackgram (Vigna mungo L. Hepper) is caused by whitefly-transmitted begomoviruses, particularly Mungbean yellow mosaic virus (MYMV) and Mungbean yellow mosaic India virus (MYMIV), which cause substantial economic losses across South and Southeast Asia. Exploitation of host plant resistance to develop resistant cultivars remains the most effective, economically feasible and sustainable management strategy. In northern India, MYMIV is a major viral disease affecting blackgram crop. The investigations were carried out to identify potential donors carrying genes imparting resistance against MYMIV-associated YMD in blackgram through large-scale field-based phenotyping using a standardised 1–9 disease rating scale. A diverse panel of 216 blackgram genotypes comprising released varieties, advanced breeding and experimental lines were evaluated under natural epiphytotic conditions at a MYMIV hotspot (Jhansi, India) during Kharif 2023 and Kharif 2024. Disease severity was recorded at the pod-filling stage, and the percent disease index (PDI) was calculated to classify genotypes into various disease reaction levels. Out of 216 genotypes, 51 genotypes were classified as resistant (PDI < 5%), 81 as moderately resistant (PDI = 5–10%), 58 as moderately susceptible, 25 as susceptible and only one accession as highly susceptible. Presence of the MYMIV-specific amplicon in plants exhibiting YMD symptoms confirmed MYMIV infection at the molecular level and complemented the PDI-based resistance classification. A highly significant negative correlation (r = –0.88***) was observed between PDI and SYPP, indicating that MYMIV-associated YMD severity accounts for approximately 77% of yield variation. Several released varieties, such as IC-236718, IPU-2K-99-221, KU-302 and elite breeding lines RLBU-L1-33 and RLBU-L2-15, showed stable resistance across both Kharif 2023/24 seasons. These genotypes may represent useful allelic diversity for MYMIV-associated YMD resistance and can serve as potential donors in future breeding programmes aimed at developing high-yielding, YMD-resistant blackgram varieties.

Keywords: begomovirus; disease resistance; donor identification; field phenotyping; Mungbean yellow mosaic India virus (MYMIV); urdbean

Received: March 21, 2026; Revised: August 20, 2026; Accepted: August 20, 2026; Prepublished online: October 8, 2026